Inexplicably
by Iaragon
Summary: It's how they come to love eachother. KuramaLupin-OC. Oneshot Series. FROZEN, ON ACCOUNT OF 'MATCHBOX' GOING BACK UP.
1. It Begins

Sooooo, for those of you who remember Matchbox, this ir sort-of-not-really a revamping, except it'll be in oneshots and updated on whim, because univerity/scholarship apps and timetables and all that STUFF is nerve wracking. For those of you who've never read Matchbox, I hope you enjoy aswell!

Iaragon

**One: It Begins**

Lupin yawned. Loudly. And definitely on purpose.

"Miss Lupin," the guidance counsellor huffed, splaying both her hands across the tiny desk in the tiny room. Her face was red, Lupin noted with (malicious) amusement. Really, all she did this time was _yawn. _

"I know my name," Lupin said, grinning predatorily. "I'm not here because I have amnesia."

Mrs. Hung's mouth tilted into one firm line. "Would it really be _that _difficult to listen to me for _five minutes _without interupting me?"

"I didn't interupt you," the teen replied, sounding innocent but unable to keep a straight face. "I'm dreadfully _fatigued, _sensei, from another all-nighter studying math textbooks and doing quadratic formulas _for fun_-,"

"That's enough," the counsellor sniffed, pretending to be ignorant to Lupin's laughter, which had finally overflowed. "We'll great straight to the point, Miss Lupin. How was your day today?"

Lupin's laughter faded, but the wicked grin remained. How she loved to torment this woman. "Simply _splendid.__"_

"Oh?" Mrs. Hung raised an eyebrow. "I'm quite sure Kemaro-san would say otherwise."

"Tsk," Lupin set her feet on Mrs. Hung's desk, mightily amused at the scowl Mrs. Hung tried and failed to hide. "Kemaro's day was terrible, probably. But you weren't asking me about _his _day, were you? _My _day was _simply splendid._"

"I'm interested to hear your reason for knocking Kemaro-san out during P.E.," Mrs. Hung continued dryly.

Lupin's grin faded. After a moment, it appeared again. "He was being naughty. Someone had to give him a slap on the wrist."

"And you consider it your duty to pass judgement on others but not yourself?"

"I'm surprised you caught on so fast."

"The _school system _will deal with delinquents like Kemaro-san," Mrs. Hung said firmly. "The same way they deal with delinquents like _you._"

"Slow, tortuous death by guidance appointments?"

Mrs. Hung sighed, and Lupin knew that was it. She grinned and hopped out of her chair, grabbing the cup of coffee that she wasn't allowed to drink during sessions, and cradling it gleefully on her way to the door.

"See you tomorrow, sensei," she said brightly, threw open the door, and practically dashed out.

In the hallway, Lupin calmed down a bit. She glanced at the closed door behind her as though expecting Mrs. Hung to come dashing out angrily, but nothing happened. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, Lupin walked down the empty school hallway and exited through a side door.

It was sunny, Lupin thought with annoyance, brushing bangs from her eyes to glare up at the sun. The staring contest only lasted a matter of seconds, however, until Lupin cried out and clapped her hands over her eyes.

Damn sun. It thought it was so _high and mighty _just because without it everyone would _die__…_

One day, bastard. One day.

"Lupin!"

Lupin peered through her fingers at a tall shadow suddenly looming over her. "Yusuke…" she muttered. "I'm busy."

Yusuke faulted. "I haven't even asked you anything yet!"

"Good. I'm still busy."

"But-,"

"I'm _not _buying flowers for Keiko again and putting your name on them," she scowled. "It's your own fault she's always mad at you."

"What?!"

"You always blow her off!"

"But I got my reasons!"

"Obviously that excuse isn't working!" she huffed softly and shuffled in her pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Sticking one in her mouth, she grinned at the look of disgust on Yusuke's face as she searched for a lighter.

"Gross…"

"Whatever," she muttered through her teeth, removing the cigarette briefly to take a large gulp of coffee. "Keiko's going to get sick of it, you know."

Yusuke scowled at the floor. "I'm trying, alright?" he said defensively.

"_I__'__m _sick of it, and I'm not even your girlfriend," Lupin blew out a stream of smoke and tossed her empty cappuccino cup in a passing garbage. She rubbed one eye tiredly. "I think the last time I met up with _one _of you was a couple months ago. Seeing you, Keiko, and Kazuma all at once just might give me a heart attack. Just…I don't know. I'm not a relationship guru. She's lonely and I'm not fun company."

"Whatever," Yusuke muttered, mimicking her earlier use of the word. Lupin rolled her eyes.

"Look." She set a hand on her hip and stopped on the sidewalk. "Do you know where Kazuma is? He lent me five bucks."

"He went to the _mall,_" Yusuke spat the word out with disgust. "Pickin' somethin' up for Shizuru."

"Tampons?" Lupin snickered.

"Ugh," Yusuke scowled even as a light blush dusted his nose. "Don't talk about that! Aren't girls supposed to be, like, taboo on that kind of thing?!"

She laughed brightly, rubbing the back of her head with a large grin. "Too easy!" she jeered. "I'll see you later. Hopefully before I graduate."

"If you get that far," Yusuke muttered childishly.

She was already jogging towards the mall. "I will!" she called back brightly.

Well, eventually, anyways. Lupin hopped across a garden gnome on her jaunt through someone's front lawn and hurried through a crosswalk down towards the grocery store, plugging small white headphones into her ears. She slowed to a more leisurely pace and snuffed out her cigarette, blissfully unaware of anything but the bass vibrating through her mp3 player. It is then quite understandable that Lupin would be oblivious to the sound of someone running towards her from the opposite direction. It would be equally unfair to blame Lupin for bending down to tie her shoe at the exact moment the runner had been about to pass her, resulting in a rather brutal collision of flesh and bones.

Lupin felt a body - well, more legs than a body - knock into her side with such force she found herself sprawled across the ground near the curb. Her earphones were ripped painfully from her ears as her hip slammed brutally against the concrete sidewalk. She felt the _thump _of another body dropping aswell even as expletives spilled furiously from her mouth. Her palm scraped across the sidewalk on contact, leaving a sharp sting in its wake.

"What the _hell - !_" Lupin sat up incredulously, then froze, staring at her impromptu attacker. At first, the only thing she could register was his vibrant, richly-coloured - _it can't possibly be natural _- hair. Red, blood red. The mane of crimson shifted and pooled gently across his shoulders as the man stood. It drifted gently in the breeze, not one strand out of place even after their untimely crash.

Lupin blinked as an outstretched hand abruptly filled her vision. "I am terribly sorry," said the red-haired man, voice soft and pleasant and alarmingly artificial. Lupin stared past the hand at almond-shaped eyes that were politely concerned on the surface, but she could see a hidden indifference lurking behind those pretenses.

The dark-haired woman cocked her head and rolled her eyes, snapping out of the strange reverie. She scooted back so she could stand up, opting to ignore the insincere weirdo, rubbing her sore ears and glancing about for her mp3 player. She found it sitting innocently on the road not far from where she fell and grinned triumphantly, bending down over the curb to pick it up -

Hands curled around her shoulders and jerked her backwards mere seconds before a truck, horn blaring, zoomed past them right over the place Lupin had been crouched. As it drove away, Lupin could only stare blankly at what had once been her mp3 player. It lay in tiny, crunched pieces, never to play another tune.

The redhead seemed to take her silence for shock. He released her shoulders. "You should be more careful," he chastised simply. "These roads are quite busy."

Lupin turned to stare at him. He'd broken her mp3 player. He'd _broken _her mp3 player. _He'd broken her mp3 player._

"You - my -," Lupin pointed angrily at the mess of plastic scattered on the road, trying to articulate. "It - _what the hell did you do that for? _What have I ever done to you?! Let me guess, you're one of Matsuri's buddies, aren't you?"

A frown greased the redhead's brow. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Are you hurt?"

"AM I HURT!" Lupin clenched her fists tightly and again gestured wildly at the road. "You broke my mp3 player, dammit!"

The weirdo followed her hand to the road and the broken music player. He looked calm again. "It was run over by the truck, miss. I did not touch it."

"I was about to get it! And then you grabbed me! It would still be in one piece if you hadn't tried to play the hero!"

"I beg your pardon." the redhead shook his head. "You were about to be crushed-,"

"_You _made that assumption! I could hear the truck _coming, _stupid, which is why I was getting it! DAMNIT!" Lupin threw her hands up angrily. "YOU THINK I COULDN'T SEE THE DAMN TRUCK?! YOU - YOU PUNK!"

They were attracting quite a crowd. The redhead glanced about briefly. "I'm very sorry," he said, but Lupin couldn't detect an ounce of sincerity. "But I am in a great hurry."

And before Lupin could get the words out, he was gone. She mouthed soundlessly for a moment, staring at the spot he had been, and looking around wildly. He was nowhere in sight.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

--

_The next day Lupin approached the same road, dressed in black, and laid a rose on the curb. She sniffed sadly as she placed a small card next to the road. _

'_Here lies my one true love. May you find peace in that big music store in the sky.'_

--

tbc.


	2. Lupin's Revenge, Take One

_A/N: Ahh, it feels good to revisit old characters like this. Though I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, just to get that out of the way. And yet, yesterday I found myself scouring for some good old YoukoOC/KuramaOC/HieiOC, and found myself gravely disappointed at my own inability to find any good ones. And the REALLY good ones (check out Toki's Satu, by the Sacred Bovine) are in dire need of an update!!_

_Well, that's just the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? I fear I've also fallen into this nasty trap -- but perservere I shall!_

_Read on!_

_--line--_

**Revenge: Take One**

Criminals, Lupin thought, _always _return to the scene of the crime.

The black-haired ningen kept a sharp eye on the people that came and went past her incredibly genius hiding place – a couple bushes right next to the patch of sidewalk on which The Incident had taken place some three days earlier. The thought that her victim would return to the scene of his unspeakable crime ran like a mantra through her head, blocking out all the other, much less exciting thoughts that ran through her head, such as 'I'm an idiot for doing this' and 'That bastard, I've skipped two days of school and he still isn't here' and her current Annoying Thought, 'I'm getting a sunburn, and it _hurts_.'

With a large huff, Lupin rocked back on her heels and tugged irritably on her hat. What a jerk. Here she was, poised to kill him, and he didn't even have the grace to follow proper criminal protocol and return to the scene of the crime. What a stupid jerk. No – a _punk, _a _rebel, _if his hair colour was anything to go by.

Lupin growled and crossed her arms. Kids these days.

As though queued by the gods, a large yellow kickball took that moment to plant itself quite firmly in Lupins gut.

The young woman jerked automatically and doubled over, coughing as she grabbed the source of her sudden cough attack and dug her fingernails into it furiously as she stood – this day was not going well at all. Who the _hell_-,"

"Gyaah!" shouted an alarmed, youthful voice. "Nee-san, why are you hiding in the bushes?!"

Lupin glared irritably at the child on the sidewalk, who stared back with a horrified expression. "Don't call me 'nee-san', short stuff. And keep your ball to yourself next time!"

"'S not my fault you can't catch – _meanie!_"

Lupin gasped and reared back in mortification. In normal circumstance she would scoff fearlessly in the face of such a word, but she knew well the inner workings of Little Kid Talk, wherein 'meanie' constituted the most dire of insults. She folded her arms and sniffed, wounded. "I hope you don't kiss your kaa-san with that mouth – _brat!_"

The boy scowled furiously, recognising a challenge when he saw it. With a mangled shout, he grabbed the ball from her hands and hugged it possessively, fixing her with a baleful glare. "Well – girls have cooties, anyways!" he hollered indignantly, before running off down the sidewalk, presumably back to his mother.

Lupin snuffed and adjusted her hat, muttering. The nerve of kids today. There was no _way _she was that nasty as a child. Ryu maybe – but _definately _not her! Maybe it was a boy thing. Lupin rolled her eyes to herself and sighed, waving off the air of nostalgia. After a moment, she glanced about her blankly.

Now – what had she been doing...?

It was at that moment Lupin belatedly caught sight of the coffee shop sitting innocently across the street, and all coherent thought melted into a haze of caffeinated, esspresso-desire.

* * *

Lupin sighed happily into her cup of mocha goodness five minutes later, sipping contentedly as she stared out the window. All her worries were washed away. And yet, for some reason, it felt as though she were forgetting something important.

Yes, the black-haired girl thought as she eyed the passing stranger on the sidewalk outside. Something important...

Lupin noticed a rather eye-catching figure in a pink – no, _magenta _uniform with long red hair walking smoothly down the far sidewalk. She took another sip of coffee and hummed to herself, musing on the oddities of the world. Really, in Japan you came across the strangest hair styles, and the shade of red was incredibly –

Wait.

"SONUVABITCH."

* * *

_Ah, Lupin, always getting distracted aren't you? Tsk, tsk._

_I know it's short – but that's okay! By the way, if there are any suggestions you have in terms of what kind of trouble the dynamic duo find themselves in at any time during this series of oneshots, let me know and I'll see what I can do!_


	3. A Son's Devotion

_What's this? A second update in a two-day time period? Why, I might be coming down with a fever. This one is also short, just a quick character study of Kurama. But the next chapter shall be long. Remember, I will be taking requests for any oneshots or situations you would like to see Kurama and Lupin in._

**A Son's Devotion**

Shiori was a graceful woman around the kitchen. She seemed most content when absorbed in a cookbook, performing an unconscious waltz across the tile floor as she moved counter to counter, dicing vegetables and steaming rice and humming a bodiless tune all the while.

She put her love into every step, just as she put her love into everything she'd ever done to raise him.

"Suuichi, dear, could you pass me the salt?"

Kurama lifted the saltshaker from the table with a soft, "Yes, mother," and sat it gently on the countertop just far enough from her nimble hands that she couldn't knock it over. In the process, he noticed her sleeves were rolled up to keep them from catching or getting stained, baring long, ragged scars to him.

He glanced away and moved to the dish cupboard, intent on setting the table. He didn't get to help her anymore and barely got to see her. Between work and missions for Koenma, his mother had somehow taken a backseat in his life, and he wasn't sure what he thought about it.

"It's so nice to have you home, dear," Shiori said as if reading his mind. She sighed happily. "When was the last time you sat down to dinner with us?"

Fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right. Napkin. Glass. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to leave you."

A soft noise left Shiori's thin lips; she smiled down at her recipe in the making. "Never you mind, darling. I know how important your school work is to you. And you're such a smart boy, well it'd be selfish of me to horde your talents, wouldn't it?" she turned; cast him that warm smile that twisted his stomach. He smiled back at her with only a slight effort; every year it seemed to get easier as he dug his grave deeper. Her trust was overwhelming, so much so that it tore at him _(__him__, the greatest of criminals)_, especially when he shamelessly took advantage of that trust.

"Besides," Shiori hummed again, brushing flour from her hands as she consulted her cookbook. "I have little Suuichi and Ren to keep me company. I know that as you get older, you need more space..."

But that was the problem, wasn't it? His case seemed reversed. As a younger human, he had all but yearned to return to Makai and resume his life there. Every day stuck in Ningenkai was another in Hell. But up to this day, he had grown attached, too attached...

It had never pained him like this to lie.

A certain dreamy edge polished Shiori's tone. "I know one day you'll go away to college...get married...have little children..." He could almost see the loving smile smoothed over her lips as she paused to moon over her dreams of his future.

Every day, every minute, he was lying to her. With every manipulation, turn of phrase, excuse, he made a larger and larger tear in their relationship. She was oblivious to it, of course, but eventually she would know. When he didn't age. When he slipped up, as someday he was destined to do, and revealed himself as the nightmarish creature he was.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, mother. That's all very far in the future."

How he deluded himself.

"Yes, well," Shiori resumed her well-practised dance with an extra bounce in her step, one Kurama didn't miss.

He did not remember his youkai mother, had never encountered her in all his thousand years. But he doubted he could have cared for her the way he was devoted to Shiori, to make her proud, to provide for her in any way a son could for his mother. He would give his life for her, and the lives of many others.

"Here, dear," Shiori turned, cupping one hand beneath the wooden spoon she held in the other. A sugary substance dripped from it. "Test this for me. Too much lemon?"

Kurama gently took the spoon from her and tasted, glancing again at the scars on her arms.

"How does it taste, Suuichi?"

_I am a fool._

"Delicious."

* * *

_Sigh. Kurama has so much emo-angst going on beneath the surface, served with a large slice of remorse. Really, that must be all the human in him. _

_Kurama/Lupin interaction next chapter!_

_RR, please. _


	4. Downfall

_A/N: I know I promised Kurama/Lupin action this chapter, but this idea hit me last night and I am but a slave to the muse! And believe me, you'll love the next chap. _

_I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho!_

**Downfall**

What Lupin does know, for all her dubious eighteen years and her C averages, is that it's hard – _so _hard – to stop loving someone.

And maybe that's why she can't muster the courage to call Ryu, her only brother, her twin, _her other half._ For a whole mess of reasons, all revolving around this one glitch in her design. She knows she loves her brother, and that loving him is right, and that he loves her too, possibly more than anything else _(because wasn't that the reason he was rotting in prison)_ – but she knows part of her loves their father, too.

Lupin pulls the lollipop from her mouth and gives it a thorough lick, leaning back on the seat of the car she was supposed to be fixing. She wants so badly to hate him, their father, just like Ryu does. She has seen the burning man Ryu can become at the mere mention of him, a wild creature, storming and raging like the sea in a storm, threatening to suck her in, drown her, suffocate her, and screaming, _always screaming. _

_Look at what he does to you. _

_You're suffering, Lupin, always suffering. _

_Look at you. _

_What father does this to his child?_

Lupin picks up the screwdriver sitting on her knees and rubs it clean with the cloth thrown over her shoulder. The stick of her lollipop juts out from her mouth like a pretend cigarette, waiting to be lit.

But, he was her _father. _How could she not want to be something in his eyes? She loves him, if only the memory of the kind man he used to be, and she won't simply say no to that.

_You're always suffering._

"Not true," Lupin mumbles to the screw driver, hanging an arm lazily out the car window.

But to see the look in Ryu's eyes when she saw him, after all this time, him sentenced to life and her, not learning anything from it. He would know she was no better than before, and that father still held purchase in her eyes. And what would he say or do then?

Maybe he would reject her, just like he did father, and their mother before that. And that's possibly what scares Lupin most.

Someone knocks on the garage door and Lupin jerks in surprise, knocking her forehead against the roof in the process whilst she curses and fumbles for the door latch. The garage is darker than usual since Lupin had neglected to turn on the lights, and so she is forced to make her way haphazardly through the garage before reaching the door. With a small grin of triumph, Lupin swings it open to find a middle-aged woman standing on the other side, smiling kindly.

"Hi," Lupin says breathlessly, hurriedly kicking off the bucket her foot sat in. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I was wondering," the kind woman smiles, hands folded neatly in front of her. "My car won't start, and it's sitting in the garage at home. Does your establishment by any chance make house calls?"

"It's not a problem," Lupin shrugs and avoids the smiling. Pleasantries try her patience. "I can come by tomorrow, if you're okay with that."

The woman looks surprised for half a second – Lupin gets that reaction a lot. Despite her best efforts, people always mistook her for the scholarly-type, not the mechanic-type – before the woman nods. "That would be perfect, thank you."

"It's my job," Lupin replies, ducking her head against the pleased expression on the woman's face. Her cheeks are flushing and she's not sure why. "I'm fairly familiar with the city, if you give me an address I can be there early tomorrow morning, ma'am."

"Minamino," the woman supplies happily. "You can call me Mrs. Minamino."

* * *

_A/N: I bet you can guess what happens next. Another meeting!!_

TBC.


End file.
